Junior Rich Heany will serve as Student Council President for the 2016-2017 school year.

Juniors Ryan Franks, Jack Pettit, and Alex Reber ran against Heany, but Heany came out victorious. As per the voting procedure, Reber will serve at the Vice President next year because he received the second most number of votes.

Heany came to Malvern as a freshman from Rosemont School of the Holy Child in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. He is a member of the National Honor Society, the football team, and the SpeakUp Student Committee.

Heany knew from the start of this year that he wanted to have leadership roles at Malvern.

“[Running for president] was something that I really wanted to do going into this year. I wanted to run for MECO leader as well as run for president, but I missed the MECO leader meeting,” he said. “Looking back on it, I really regret not being there and not running. After that, I had a conversation with Fr. Flynn.

Heany’s conversation with Fr. Flynn was the driving force behind his desire to run for Student Council President.

“Fr. Flynn took me out of football practice and asked me why I didn’t apply to be a MECO Leader. He seemed really upset,” Heany said. “After that I said to myself, ‘He expects me to be a leader, and I am a leader, so I have to use the leadership that God gave me.’”

Heany plans to use his God-given gifts to make changes going into next year.

“First things first would be the Senior Lounge,” he said. “Next, we’re going to try to find more ideas for dress down days, because we raise money for a bunch of different things. [We want to] try to raise school spirit. We’re trying to make sure things like the fall play — make sure everyone’s going there and it’s sold out every night. As well the art show — get more attendance there, and also school student sections for sports games.”

Heany plans to increase advertising for events to get more attendance and raise school spirit. He is considering a grassroots approach of going around to homerooms the day of events as well as flyers and more Facebook event pages.

The Winterfest dance is also a question heading forward, but Heany is open to bringing it back if students want to attend.

For an overall goal for next year, Heany plans to keep it simple.

“I just want to make — especially our senior year — and everybody else’s year the best year they’ve had at Malvern,” he said.